1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wearable protective sports padding and, more particularly, to a layer of flexible and lightweight padding that, regardless of orientation, exhibits consistent material properties in all directions while improving impact protection, comfort and fit.
2. Description of the Background
Protecting players from injury is a primary concern for any sport. Sports such as hockey, football and lacrosse feature player-to-player contact as well as player-to-ground and player-to-equipment (i.e., ball, stick, puck, etc.) contact that has the potential to injure participants. Consequently, players participating in such contact sports wear protective gear such as helmets, elbow/knee pads, shin pads, rib/kidney protectors and shoulder pads. To be effective, padding must absorb and distribute the force of blows or contact, yet it cannot impede the player's range of motion, agility and speed. Toward this latter goal the padding is ideally very light-weight and flexible. Player comfort also requires that pads have adequate ventilation so that players are not overheated or overly fatigued when using their equipment during intense physical exertion.
To accomplish these opposing requirements of protection and flexibility with minimum restriction, protective gear is typically constructed of an assembly of soft padding in combination with molded, semi-rigid or hard shells or plates. These hard plates configured to be worn by the participant over those areas of the body most likely to be impacted during play of the particular game. The extent and placement of soft pads versus hard plates varies depending on where high-impact zones might occur, and these zones in turn depend on a variety of factors. For example, a lacrosse defenseman performs more stick and body checking than he absorbs and so his pads can be lighter-weight. Conversely, lacrosse attackmen require much more robust protection because their job is to avoid defensemen and score on goal, which makes them the target of much checking and physical contact. In soccer, players wear hard shell protective gear primarily on their shins, while football players wear hard shell protective gear on their shoulders and heads owing to the areas of hardest contact. A football quarterback's padding however emphasizes freedom of motion while a lineman's pads traditionally offer much more protection.
Hard shell protective gear typically comprises one or more plates of rigid plastic. While the plates can be manufactured in different sizes, they are not custom fit and are inevitably non-breathable, hard, motion-limiting and less comfortable to wear. It is more desirable that protective gear be flexible to allow maximum range of motion but also provide adequate protection to a wide range of players.
Prior art protective gear has made some strides towards pad flexibility, player comfort and range of motion. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,661,564 and 8,627,512 to Dodd describe a protective shin guard comprised of a plurality of rigid, triangular or round plates joined together by living hinges. The collective plates form a hard “core” that is disposed inside or on top of an elastomeric or conformable substrate. The plates are free to flex triaxially, each plate pivoting along an axis relative to an adjacent plate and the axes being one of three orientations. This gives the collective core some added flexibility without compromising its impact resistance. However, the three-axis flexural design of Dodd is limited by the location and direction of its hinges relative to rigid plates, thereby preventing the hard core padding from conforming maximally to the player's body and accommodating its entire range of motion. The Dodd design also is oriented toward localized impact absorption rather than widespread impact dispersion, the latter being a benefit of the material described herein.
What is needed then is a more flexible and breathable layer of hard shell padding that is sufficiently conformable to any portion of the body of a player so as to impose the least possible restriction on the player's movement. Further, what is needed is a layer of padding with these properties to also effectively disperse impact from severe blows of the type and force anticipated during high-level sports game m which a ball/puck and stick/bat are necessary implements.